From Twilight to Midnight
by imkikyo
Summary: Kibou, a wandering AI, is sent on a journey to find her purpose in The World. What she finds along the way might not be what she expected....


Here I am, writing something else I most likely won't finish. If you like the story and you pester me enough though, I just might.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own "The World," its characters, or any other .hack concepts, the members of project .hack do. I'm also not making any money off this idea, even though I wish I could be. I do, however, own Kibou, and any other character in this story that is not mentioned in .hack.

**From Twilight to Midnight**

--Prologue--

12:00 AM, exactly. How she knew that, Kibou wasn't so sure. She didn't know where she was, how she got there, or even how she knew her own name. "Kibou…" she muttered, standing up, as she had just realized she was lying on a pile of trash. The name sounded familiar. It could have been the name of someone she'd met before, but she wasn't sure she'd even existed until this point.

In fact, it struck her as odd that, even though she had no prior memories, she was perfectly capable of functioning. Someone had to have taught her to speak and to read, and to know the time. Yet, strangely, she was sure no one had.

Kibou looked around her. In every direction lay more piles of trash, some large, some small. Looking more closely, she noticed that there were people walking around, seemingly without a destination. Some of these people looked perfectly normal, while others were oddly deformed, and had random objects for heads or character strings to replace random body parts, or were broken in random places. It was quite a strange sight, and upon finding several large fragments of some reflective material, Kibou sighed with relief at the fact that she, at least, was one of the normal ones.

The face that looked back at her from the shattered pieces was unfamiliar, yet she knew somehow that it was what her face was supposed to look like. A mass of sleek, black hair covered her right eye, and quite a bit of the right side of her face. The other eye, which she could see was crimson near the top and deep purple towards the bottom, was only slightly obscured by a few black strands. Looking up at the source of all the darkness in her face, Kibou saw a golden headband, placed right at her hairline.

Her mouth and nose were long and thin, and flanking them were two golden stripes, one on each cheek. Kibou lifted a hand to touch one, but again her hair was in the way. Annoyed, she tugged on it lightly, and her hand continued down the length of it to discover that the part she couldn't see (for she knew the hair in her face extended to her waist) ended at her knees, and was bound at her waist with a neatly tied ribbon.

She felt so out of place, among all these deformed people who were perfectly comfortable with themselves, while she was still learning what she looked like. To continue the process, she looked down at her clothes. Her hands and feet were gloved and booted in black, and a crimson coat the length of her hair covered much of her ground-length dress, colored blood red and black in a medieval fashion.

Now that Kibou knew a bit more about herself, she decided to explore this odd place. Almost as soon as she had started walking, a young girl wearing a red dress stepped in front of her. Kibou guessed her age at ten or eleven. The girl had straight, shoulder-length, platinum-blonde hair, with locks that stuck out on either side and were colored to match her vibrant clothes.

"Hello," she said, bowing slightly.

"Hello," Kibou replied.

"Are you looking for the end?"

"Er… yes?"

"What is the end? Where is the end? The end has no end. It is endless. What is 'endless'?"

"Excuse me?" The girl's actions confused Kibou greatly. If her body was intact, surely her mind would be as well, right?

"The end. Do you want the end? Tell me, what happened to the end? It was supposed to be over by now. Why didn't it end?"

"What should have caused it to end?"

Upon hearing this, the girl smiled gently. Her tone of voice changed to a serious, yet still young and playful one.

"The end. I want the end, and you want the end, but we do not have the same end. My end will take a very long time to find, but your end is endless."

"What do you mean by 'my end is endless'?"

"Endless. He will give you the end."

"How do I find 'endless'?"

"She knows of endless. 'The World' knows of endless. We do not know of endless, but our neighbors know of endless. They can give you endless, but we know not of him."

"Who is she? What is 'The World'? Who are our neighbors?" Kibou was aware now of how much she sounded like the girl in front of her, speaking only in questions and seeming not to understand anything.

"She is the center of 'The World,' but 'The World' is a different person altogether. We are in 'The World,' but at the same time, we are not connected to 'The World.'"

"I still don't understand. Who are our neighbors?"

"There are many people in 'The World.' They are like us, and unlike us. Many of them cannot reach us, so they dwell instead in 'The World.' They do not seek the end, but they have the end."

"So I have to go to 'The World' to find the end?"

"Yes. Here, at our home, we have friends who can help you to go to 'The World.' But we cannot give you the end."

"Thank you."

The girl bowed again, and slowly walked off. Kibou, having just realized something, called after her.

"Yes? Did you find the end?" she asked.

"No, but I want to ask you something. What is your name?"

"Once, I was called Lycoris."

Before Kibou could respond, Lycoris turned around and continued walking. Mildly surprised, she shrugged and decided to let it pass.

She had been wandering around for about half an hour, weaving her way through trash piles, dilapidated buildings, and damaged people when a woman descended from the sky in front of her. The woman wore a white dress, skimpy at the top with a full skirt, and decorated intricately. On her head was a hat that Kibou somehow knew resembled a priest's hat (though she had no memory of ever seeing one) that was similarly decorated and covered her eyes.

"Welcome to Net Slum," she said, in a deep, ringing voice. The staff in her hand waved around as she gestured to the endless dump around them. "I can see you're new here."

"Yes, that would be correct."

The woman smiled. "My name is Helba. Some would call me the master of this place, though it would be foolish to officially assume that role. And you are?"

"I am Kibou. What is this place?"

"Net Slum is the area of 'The World' that collects unwanted data. Fragments of deleted data, imperfect NPCs, unusable or outdated data, it all ends up here. Numerous AI are born here from the remnants of character data and such. At some point in 'The World's history, hackers found this place and were amused by it. They turned it into a proper area, though it is disorderly at best. It is everywhere and yet nowhere in 'The World', meaning it is disconnected from the system, but one can still go back and forth between here and there."

"I don't understand. What is 'The World'? What are NPCs? What are AI?"

Helba laughed lightly. "Forgive me. You must have been born very recently. 'The World' is the world that you and I are currently inside. However, what makes us different is that you live here, but I do not. We are in a virtual world, a world you were created inside, but I am only visiting. 'The World' is divided up into two types of people: PCs and NPCs. PCs- Player Characters- are people from the real world who come here to play the game designed by C.C. Corp. NPCs- Non-Player Characters- are AI- Artificial Intelligence- created either by C.C. Corp to enhance the game, or by the system itself."

"Which am I?"

"You are an AI. Created inside this world, you only exist here, rather than PCs, who exist in the real world and only role-play living here."

"I thought this _was_ the real world."

She laughed again. "It is, for you. For me, it is only a virtual one."

"I was told by a young girl that I should find the end."

"She was most likely referring to the purpose that all AI have, that each one must fulfill before they can leave 'The World' and become what they were born from- fragments of data."

"She said that my end was 'endless.' She said that 'she' knew of 'endless,' that 'The World' knew of 'endless,' that our neighbors knew of 'endless.'"

"By 'her' she meant the core of this world. By 'The World,' she meant the experiences it has to provide. By our neighbors, she meant the PCs in 'The World,' who are near us but cannot find us. It seems to me she was suggesting you go out into 'The World' and seek your end there."

"How can I do that?"

"Assume a character class. Judging by your design, you would be most convincing as a Wavemaster. I will provide you with a list of data specifying the abilities, privileges, and restrictions of Wavemasters before I teleport you into 'The World.' Good luck."

There was a huge rush of sound, and everything turned to blank whiteness. From that point on, Kibou wondered what was going to become of her.

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Alright. There's the prologue done. Hopefully Helba and Lycoris weren't too OOC. I had a bit of a hard time writing this because it takes place sometime in the three years separating //UDEDEN and //Roots. I've read/seen //UDEDEN, but I haven't played the games, so there's a big gap in my .hack knowledge between there and //SIGN. I'm trying my best not to, but if I mess up and include something that the first four games got rid of or changed, let me know and I'll fix it.

Now, about Kibou. She's the main character of an original story posted on my DeviantART (link at my profile). I didn't want to post this there also because the first story isn't complete, and this is its sequel. If you're interested in Kibou's story, I suggest you head over to my DeviantART and read Neverending Faith. It's nearly impossible to miss, it's right near the top of the page.

Anyway, please review. Flames are fine, as long as you don't make yourself out to be some idiot bent on picking apart my flaws, because if that's what you sound like to me, I won't hesitate to abuse you just as much.


End file.
